Owner disappeared

Long-term parker at airport faces €200,000 charge

BER Airport in Berlin

(Bild: APA/dpa-Zentralbild/Patrick Pleul)

A gray VW has allegedly been parked in the short-term parking lot at Berlin's BER airport for almost a year - with a hefty parking fee of 23 euros per hour, the fee has now accumulated to 200,000 euros. But the car owner cannot be traced ...

A day at the short-term parking lot is quite expensive: 552 euros in fees are due. A driver with a license plate from Hanover apparently didn't care: he parked his car there long-term and disappeared without a trace. 

The long-term parker is shown in this article:

Car owner cannot be traced
As the "Berliner Zeitung" reported, 200,000 euros in fees have been accrued since then - roughly equivalent to one year's parking fees. But the parking lot operator Apcoa Deutschland is not going to get rid of the VW that easily: so far, the owner of the car has not been traced. 

This is because having a vehicle towed away there is legally complex and cannot be implemented at short notice. They are in contact with the airport as the owner of the parking garage and the police in this regard. However, despite all efforts, there is no trace of the vehicle owner, although the public order office has also been involved in the search.

"Whether parking fees owed in this context can be collected depends on whether the debtor can be identified and has the necessary financial means," an Apcoa spokesperson told the Berliner Zeitung.